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Wash, Wash, Wash

Still clearing out 92 (!) unpublished drafts. This one’s from Feb 16. I think it was waiting on photos – maybe later, maybe never:

We moved most of the kitchen and living room into the bedrooms for Midi’s birthday party on Sunday. Re-messing the place back up again afterwards, I realised that the girls’ dolly stuff was filthy. Last year I terrified the neighbours by washing and pegging out all their dolls clothes (“4 little girls? Another baby Trout?! That’s it – we’re moving!!“). So I really only had to wash things like the dolls pram, cot and buggy fabrics, play change bag, that kind of thing. Half a washing machine load. How bad could it be? So I put it on a sports clothing cycle, 30degC wash. Within 5 mins the detergent suds were a grimy brown. Ewwwww!

I wonder if cleaning these will have any affect, whether good or bad, on Mini’s skin? I think I said already that she’s had a huge flare-up of eczema. It flared as the same time as mine, around 17 December. Whilst Mini’s always had dry skin, she’s never had eczema. And I only get it on my fingers and occasionally my eyelids. This was over my entire torso and down my arms; hers was all over her body. I tried to discover the culprit (food? new wash-powder? new fabric conditioner? new clothes? swimming pool?) but couldn’t. Whilst mine mostly died back over the next 6 weeks, hers hasn’t, just coming up and down in waves.

I took her back to the GP on Friday to see whether it was actually eczema. The GP agreed with me that 2 round discs on Mini’s legs looked fungal rather than eczema, but said the rest was eczema. I was advised to change to non-bio washing powder. I kept my opinions on this to myself (the UK is the only country that sells the stuff; what’s so special about our skin?!) but took the point that Mini’s inflamed skin didn’t need any additional irritants that she’d normally cope with. Hmmm. I’m mystified.

Edited To Add:
I kept using the same old washing powder I’ve been using since before Mini was born, but I do now routinely give all washloads an extra rinse. Mini’s eczema still seems to have no obvious connection to anything. In a past life I was a reasonable analyst, and I do think pretty logically. Even so, sometimes she goes swimming with no flare-up, other times her skin explodes; sometimes she plays under the dusty beds with no itching, other times the itch is intense; the cat doesn’t seem to cause flare-ups; we can’t find any triggering food; milk isn’t a trigger; lack of sleep and stress seem to play no part, either. She needed antibiotics for something else in April, and that seemed to calm her skin right down for nearly 10 days before it came right up again. She was referred to a dermatologist then, and I’m still waiting to hear anything (it’s now end June) – all we got was a letter saying she was on the waiting list. Poor thing – it really disturbs her sleep.